I can see that Cardinal systems may be more be more tempting to strategists, but folks can rank insincerely as well.
One reason IRV is less tempting to strategists is the capricious nature of IRV tabulations makes strategy backfires are more likely.
Group strategy is difficult to pull off, especially if you want to be discreet.
Individual strategy is the larger issue. For individuals the most common strategy is Score or IRV is to give your favorite a top score or rank and your feared rival a bottom score or rank. For many people this would be a sincere vote, leading to the fear that people who view the world in black and white may have more voting effect, particularly in Score.
Your suggestions from other threads of 100, 99, 1, 0 ballots and 100,99, 90, 50, 10, 1, 0 ballots could help. The instructions: score the best candidate 5, the worst 0, the others in comparison, ties are ok, also helps.
STAR is another attempt to ward off strategy. STAR has fails a lot of criterion because it has a utilitarian component and a majority component, yet it does very well in Jonathan Quinn's satisfaction simulations. Maybe there is some value halfway passing the mutually exclusive criterion. I believe it would take a good number of real world close three-way elections to find out.
I am rooting for the good folks in Eugene, OR. The election for their STAR ballot initiative concludes May 21st. I am perturbed by FUD dump by Unite America in the election campaign.